Hey! You made it! One holiday shopping weekend down, two to go. News this weekend was a bit slow, largely playing catchup with the rather harsh economic news that came out on Friday.

533K – Doesn’t really do the news justice, but that’s the number reported Friday morning for job loses. That’s not job loses in all of 2008, no, that’s jobs that were lost in just November. As the news was quick to note, that’s the biggest single month loss since December 1974.

2 million or 6.7% – It’s a recession! The folks at the National Bureau of Economic Review finished double checking all their facts last week, and it looks like we’ve been in a recession for a full year now. Adding in the 533k jobs lost in November, and the United States has lost over 2 million jobs, and our current unemployement rate is at 6.7% – no where near the 25% of the Great Depression, but it’s pretty large if you’re current out of work.

Bonus economic talking point – 12.5% – that’s the current underemployment rate, up from the 8% reported in October – the highest rate since the statistic was first tracked in 1994.

President-Elect Obama has started to tip his economic hand. He met with the nation’s Governors in Philly and there’s talk of largescale public works. The Washington Post said that this would be the largest such national infrastructure investment since Ike built the national highway system.

Obama’s use of public works certainly does make him look much more like FDR, and by contrast, Bush is looking much more like Herbert Hoover. This is important because apparently, calling people Hoover on Capital Hill is the new insult du jour.

The heads of the Big 3 returned to Washington, half the nation is for a loan, the other half is against a bailout.

In international news…

It looks like militants in Pakistan are borrowing from classical military doctrine and are attacking the NATO supply chain. It’s a damn effective tactic, just ask Napoleon or Hitler how Russia went. The latest attack was against a truck depot, which destroyed between 62 and 106 vehicles (reports are a bit mixed).

Image by Teacher Dude's BBQ (Flickr)

The youth are marching on the streets of Greece and they’re growing violent. The protests, which started peaceful, stem from a police shooting of a youth. However, reports are leaving Greece that Molotov Cocktails are being used against police, who are responding with tear gas. In places, Athens and Thessaloniki (that’s Greece’s second largest city) are named in reports while others are suggested, riots have sparked in pockets and lead to the destruction of private property and looting. Other than the killing which sparked the protests to begin with, no deaths have been reported. I’m awaiting confirmation from a friend in Thessaloniki.

From the Culture Desk…

It looks like Four Christmas took first place at the box office this weekend, giving people reason to think that movie goers would like to see mindless holiday comedies in times of economic down turn. As the movie took in a paltry 18 million dollars, I think the link is tenuous at best.

The RIAA has filed suit against a 19 year old from near Pittsburgh. While this doesn’t seem like news, the accused was not able to respond and judgment was passed against her. Her reason for not being at court? She has pancreatitis and was hospitalized to receive an islet cell transplant. I know the RIAA is the only business to actually sue their customers, but they don’t seem to pick very good ones to sue.

Speaking of the music industry, signs are pointing to Britney Spears’ new “album” debuting at #1 on the Billboard chart. It seems one sure fire way to stop piracy is to release music that’s not worth stealing. You go RIAA, you’ll show them pirates eventually.

And as we’re getting close to the end of the year, that can mean only one things – the Spring 2009 television season is right around the corner. Trailers have already started running for the January premiers and there’s a handful that I’m quite excited about. Expect to hear all about that.

If all that economic news got you down, here’s this week’s address from the President-Elect. He talks about some really bold moves, specifically getting computers and internet to more people.